Hiking to the cipolin marble quarry in Saillon

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10 June 2024

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30 June 2024

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Our Travels Admin

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Hiking trail, Switzerland, Valais (fr), Wallis (de), Saillon

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9.8 km548 mtr548 mtr

3h15 - 5h45

1. Introduction

An old cipolin marble quarry at an altitude of 1000 meters is located above the town of Saillon in the Rhone valley in Valais (Wallis). The marble quarry was in use from 1832 until its cessation in 1975. In first instance the discovered Saillon marble was only white and turquin marble, but then the cipolin marble was found at the end of 1873. The name cipolin originates from the Italian “cipolla” meaning veined like an onion.

Onion shaped veins in a piece of cipolin marble from Saillon (Valais/Kanton Wallis, Switzerland)

Onion shaped veins in a piece of cipolin marble from Saillon By Lysippos – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cipolin_de_Saillon.jpg
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1092729#/media/File:Cipolin_de_Saillon.jpg

2. History of the cipolin marble quarry

The French architect Jean-Louis Charles Garnier was one of the first to use the cipolin marble. He applied it in the opera Palais Garnier in Paris finished in 1875 and as such promoted it. During the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the cipolin marble was used to decorate palaces, churches, universities and musea in Europe and the USA. During that period the cipolin marble from Saillon became the most expensive in the world.

Since the discovery of the cipolin marble the industrial exploitation of the quarry involved some 25 companies succeeding each other til 1930. The cipolin marble with green, purple and often ribbon veins, would make the glory of this quarry at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Operating the quarry at the start was not easy due to the difficult lowering of the blocks from an altitude of 1000 meters, combined with crossing the Rhône river often leading to missed delivery deadlines and consequently financial losses for the operator. In 1880 a narrow gauge funicular was built to transport the marble blocks towards a processing facility located at the foot of the mountain in the hamlet of Sarvaz. This resolved the difficulties around lowering the blocks from the quarry.

The local organisation L’Association des Amis du Marbre de Saillon-Valais takes care of the history of this marble quarry and provides guided tours, but you can also hike to the quarry on your own as described below.